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“Right. It’s hard to remember.”
“The fact? Sorry I keep interrupting you.”
“Oh—well, it’s about French. Did you know it’s one of the most precise languages? The vocabulary is a lot more limited than English. So a lot of contracts and treaties are written in French, because you can really drill down on the language and specificity.”
“That is a fun fact. A fun French fact, even.”
“Okay, now you’re being sarcastic.”
“Maybe just a little.”
We stood there in silence for a moment, just the sound of the meat cooking, the faint hum of one of the cars idling in the parking lot, and two women sitting on one of the raised concrete parking blocks, eating their tamales and talking, with occasional bursts of laughter.
A gust of warm air—a desert wind—swept across the parking lot, blowing my hair across my face. I was pretty sure I had a hair tie somewhere in the depths of my canvas bag, but I didn’t want to go looking for it right this minute, so I just tucked my hair behind my ears. “There’s a line I love. It’s about the moment you understand someone’s humor without having to ask. How it’s the turning point in any relationship—when you’ve found the skeleton key to the soul.”
“What?” Russell asked, staring at me.
“It’s from Theseus’s Sailboat,” I explained, knowing this would be necessary, since most people had never heard of this book. It had come out ten years ago, it wasn’t a bestseller, and there had never been a movie or anything. I’d found it at the Raven Rock Library two years ago when I was looking through the New and Noteworthy section (it must have been mis-shelved; it was neither of those things). Looking back on it, I had no idea what about it had grabbed me—the cover? The title? The fact that my dad was waiting for me and I had to hurry? I could no longer remember, but I’d checked it out—and then I’d devoured it.
It all took place over one night on a small island off the coast of Maine. A twentysomething guy, Will, gets locked out of his hotel room—with a cat—and ends up spending the night walking around the island and talking with Emma, a marine biologist waiting up to see the first whales in a generation return to the harbor at dawn. In between the story of Will and Emma falling in love over the course of the night, there are cutaways to the summer camp on the other side of the island—this was admittedly my least-favorite part of the book. Well, that and the two chapters in the middle that were from the cat’s point of view.
And even though I’d tried to get my friends to read it—even gifting copies to Didi and Katy for Christmas last year—neither of them had gotten into it. “It sounds like Before Sunrise,” Didi had said dismissively.
“It’s not like Before Sunrise,” I’d protested, even though it was, a little. “It’s Maine, not Vienna. And there’s a camp! And a cat!”
“Pass,” Didi had said, and no amount of arguing could get her to even give it a shot. But I kept at it, because I wanted her to experience just how wonderful it was. In my mind, it was the perfect book. The first time I’d read it, I’d immediately wanted to crawl inside the world that it portrayed. And that feeling had never gone away, despite two years and countless re-reads.
Russell was still staring at me, and I realized I probably hadn’t been at all clear. “Sorry, it’s a novel,” I explained as he knelt down by the backpack at his feet and started digging through it. “It’s actually my favorite novel. It’s—”
He stood up, and I saw he was holding something in his hand—a battered hardcover copy of Theseus’s Sailboat.
“Oh my god. What?” I took his copy from him, just staring at it. It was a different edition from mine—his cover showed a couple looking out at the water, a cat winding around their feet, a whale breaching in the background. This was the book, I realized, he was reading when I’d first seen him across the bus station.
“How is it your favorite book?” he asked. “It’s my favorite book, and nobody’s ever heard of it.”
“I know! It’s a tragedy! I keep trying to get my friends to read it, and nobody ever will.”
“I did get Tall Ben to start it, at least. He couldn’t get through the camp stuff.”
“Yeah, that part can be rough. But if you just make it through—”
“I know! He’s missing out.”
We just looked at each other for a moment. What was this? How was this happening? Even in all my daydreams about what it would be like when I fell for someone, I hadn’t allowed myself to imagine something this wonderful. Someone this cute, this easy to talk to, who just got me—and loved the same book I did. It was like opening up the most beautifully wrapped present under the tree and finding a kitten inside. A level of wonderful I hadn’t even known to ask for.
“This is… crazy,” Russell said. He took a tiny step toward me.
I looked up at him, my pulse galloping, his favorite book in my arms and my eyes locked on his. I took a step toward him. Everything in me was screaming for me to kiss him, or at least take his hand again, and—
“Ready!” the woman behind the table yelled. We both turned to her as she set a big paper bag with our order on the table. “Drinks?”
She didn’t have Sidral Mundet, so I got a Sprite and Russell got a pineapple Jarritos. He handed over his twenty to pay, and as she counted out his change I noticed a little cardboard box on the table—selling candy for the Jesse High Teacher Supply Fund. There were bags of Skittles and Hershey bars, but then also less familiar candy—Big Cherry and Abba-Zaba.
“Want anything?” Russell asked. He picked up the Abba-Zaba and turned it over in his hands. “Oh man, I haven’t had one of these in years.”
“I’m not sure I ever have,” I said as the woman set Russell’s change down on the table. He bought the Abba-Zaba, too, and dropped the rest of the change in her tip jar. I started to walk away, figuring we’d be sitting on the parking blocks to eat like those women, when something occurred to me. I turned back and nodded at the candy box. “This high school,” I said. “Where is it?”
CHAPTER 5 Sunday
